Friday, April 8, 2016

Smooth Operators

(NOTE: I wrote this for the Winston-Salem Journal in 2000. It was my first story for the Journal.)

Smooth
Operators

Men
find good reasons to shave their heads, and they get strong reactions

By
TOM GILLISPIE

When
Jeff Maynard decided to shave his head in 1992, Laurie Maynard wasn’t
too pleased.

To
be truthful, Mrs. Maynard was plainly ticked off.

“She
never really yelled,” Maynard recalled, “but you know how you
know you’ve done something that has not pleased your wife?

She
acted that way for a couple of months. It took her a lot longer to
become resigned to the fact.”

Like
most of guys who decide to go hairless, Maynard was looking for a
change in his life. He didn’t want to look like most men — thin
on top with a patch of hair around the sides — so he approached
Laurie about shaving his head.

“I
wanted a new look that no one else was doing,” said Maynard, who
lives in Rural Hall but works, interestingly enough, as a nurse in
the Intensive Care Nursery at Forsyth Hospital. “I figured a bald
head was more esthetically pleasing, because I was not into a bit of
fringe around the side.”

Maynard
says he had tried several extreme haircuts from long hair to a buzz
cut similar to a mohawk. When Laurie Maynard kept saying no, Maynard
decided to out-flank his wife. When she was at work, he broke out the
shaving cream and razor.

“It
was not pretty,” he said with a laugh. “I looked like somebody
who dove head-first through a barbed-wire fence. There were nicks and
cuts everywhere. Gradually, it got better.”

True,
but then Laurie came home, and the shaving cream hit the fan.

"At
first I didn’t like it,” she admitted recently. “It was a
shock.”

Eight
years later, she’s calmed down a bit.

"She’s
gotten used to it,” he said. “Well, she tolerates it. She’s
resigned to the fact that I’m going to keep it this way.”

It
still bothers her sometimes.

"I can’t imagine him any other way,” she said. “What bothers me is
that there’s a lot of mess involved, in the sink or bathtub. He
spends a lot longer in the bathroom. The look itself, I’ve gotten
used to it.”

Jim
Sexton, who lives in Winston-Salem but works at a computer business
in Greensboro, says he was luckier than Maynard when he shaved his
head.

“One
Saturday morning while my wife was downstairs cooking breakfast, I
shaved it off,” the 37-year-old said, “and she loved it. I’ve
had it since.”

He
did get strange looks from others, though. “The funniest reaction
was my mom,” he said. “She got my hand and rubbed my head with
it.”

Maynard,
who is 5-foot-8 and 200 pounds, says he gets strange reactions. He’s
bald, has tattoos, has stretched ear lobes and wears an earring or
two. Since he doesn’t have to wear scrubs at the hospital, he often
settles for athletic gear, and people take him for a biker dude. Once
they realize he’s professional and interested in the well-being of
their children, though, they relax.

Apparently,
though, lots of bald guys get odd reactions. Sexton, who is 6-foot-2,
250 pounds and a former member of the Air Force, jokes about looking
like pro wrestlers, and, indeed, he bears a strong resemblance to
stars “Stone Cold” Steve Austin or Bill Goldberg.

"For
some, it’s a little more intimidating with a bald head,” Maynard
said. “You could take the same guy with a head of hair, and it
would not be as intimidating.

"Every
now and then, someone will tell me I look like a biker or wrestler,
because I have a few tattoos and ear rings. For me, first impressions
are different. But, when people talk to me, they realize we’re just
the same on the inside.”

Byron
Weeks gets strong reactions as well. Weeks, at 5-foot-6, 170 pounds,
isn’t an intimidating figure per se. But add a bald head,
muttonchops, tattoos and some visible piercing – Weeks has
tattooing and piercing businesses in Winston-Salem and Greensboro --
and people look at him askance.

"I have a bird (tattooed) on the back of my head, and that makes people
look with interest, too,” said Weeks, who has two baldies working
for him.

Weeks,
32, like his friend Maynard, has gone through some extremes. He once
had hair halfway down his back. Then about three or four years ago,
he asked his wife, Kelley, if she’d mind him shaving his head, and
she said no.

"To
tell you the truth, I’m not much into the hair thing,” he said.
“If I’d known what being bald was like before I did it, I would
have done this when I was 25.”

Other
men wait and wait, though.

Peer
Plaut, who runs a computer business out of Greensboro, says he was
looking for products for bald men several years ago, so he tried
www.baldmen.com on the Internet. Stunned that there was no Net site
just for baldies, Plaut (rhymes with clout) started his own:
www.baldmen.com. Plaut is the self-proclaimed Head Baldie, and
Sexton, the Head Tester, is a co-worker with the computer business
and with www.baldmen.com.

Until
recently, Plaut had let nature take its course. He cut his hair
short, but he didn’t shave it. Now he’s thinking that maybe he
will shave his head for this story. Like most men, Plaut wanted to
run it by his wife first.

Still,
some women prefer baldies. It was that way even before Telly Savalas
and Yul Brynner have shaved their heads decades ago.

"In
my experience,” said Mick Scott, “some women like it, and some
don’t. Those who do REALLY like it.”

Scott,
40, didn’t have to worry about someone else’s feelings. It made
him happy, though.

"Before,
I was a guy losing his hair; a guy shaving his head felt better,”
said Scott, a librarian at the N.C. School for the Arts, an artist
and a graduate student at UNC Greensboro.

"It
was a pretty radical move eight years ago to have a shaved head.
There was a lot of response, both positive and negative. Some people
were taken back. Some were offended. It’s not as big a deal
anymore, though.

"I don’t WANT it to be a big deal. This is just what I look like.”

Scott,
who is also into kickboxing, kung fu and bicycling, likes the fact
that he doesn’t have to worry about his hair.

There
are no figures, of course, but there are bunches of baldies out
there. Many are men like Maynard and Sexton who were losing their
hair anyway. Some have been cancer patients. Many are youngsters
trying to be like Mike (Michael Jordan) or to assert their
independence.

Tony
Thompson, a barber in Kernersville, says he had a full head of curly
hair before he went out on the town with friends. Someone bet him he
wouldn’t shave his head. They were wrong, of course. Years later,
he’s still bald.

Others,
meanwhile, go bald almost by accident.

Bryan
Grayson, the 25-year-old associate fitness director of the Central
YMCA, grew up in a military family, and he once cut his hair about a
half-inch-long on the top and shaved the sides. Grayson liked his
High & Tight, but one day he got a little overzealous with the
razor. It turned into a High & Very Tight, and he just shaved it
off.

Even
that had its problems, Grayson says. He left a few ugly splotches on
the sides, and people wondered what was going on. To make matters
worse, before he shaved, Grayson had a full head of hair on the top
and none on the sides. When he shaved the top, he had a white crown
and tanned sides. THAT drew a few strange looks. But all things must
pass, and now his tan is even.

Scott
says he doesn’t need to congregate with other baldies; but,
naturally, others will get together. Some hit web sites such as
www.baldmen.com or www.cutterscrew.com. Others, like Plaut and
Sexton, attend the annual Bald Is Beautiful convention at Morehead
City. The baldmen.com duo may be among the dozens of baldies (shaven
and otherwise) who will attend the 26th annual convention on Sept.
8-10.

Want
to join them? If you’re thinking of shaving your head, you’ll
need good tools. Grayson started out using a product that he would
mix with water, and he’d put the paste on his head. When it dried,
he just knocked off the hair. It worked, but it irritated his scalp.
He eventually switched to a normal razor and shaving cream.

Sexton,
though, uses a special shaving cream, Kiss My Face, as well as the
specially made Head Blade. Kiss My Face is sold at health food
stores, while inventor Todd Green sells his product on his website,
www.headblade.com.

Maynard
says you have two options. One, you can cut your hair shorter and
shorter; when the time is ripe, break out the razor.

The
other option? “Go ahead and give it a shot, see if she (your
spouse) will grow to like it,” he said. “If you’re dead set on
doing it, go ahead and do it. And pray for the best.”